How to Measure Business Capability Aspects

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As we explained in our previous blog on capability assessment, to effectively assess Capabilities and execute Capability-Based Planning, we need to define three dimensions: Strategic Importance, Capability Maturity, and Adaptability, and measure them. Simply put, the first dimension lets you prioritize those capabilities that are most important to your enterprise; the second focuses on where…

“All Standards are Wrong”?

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By Kees van den Brink, Senior Manager Platform Architect, ServiceNow.

This blog title is derived from the famous quote by George E.P. Box from his paper “Science and Statistics”:

Box made this statement in relation to the use of statistical models by scientists, but I’ve found that it applies equally well to the use of open standards by enterprise architects and other digital practitioners.

Key take away from this blog:
o Standards can be useful when you:
o Learn and adopt from what makes sense
o Reject what does not fit
o Want to know more: Read “The Turning Point: A Novel about Agile Architects Building a Digital Foundation”

 
Frankly, standards can be very helpful and are necessary, like the TCP/IP standard, or even old standards such as the Baudot Code (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baudot_code), which helped early instances of what would later be called telecommunications companies grow fast, or the ISO Standards, which help with interoperability.

However, there are a lot of lesser-known standards that are not getting such broad adoption. Examples that come to mind are the IT4IT™ Standard, TOGAF® Standard, BIZBOK®, etc.

Are Standards “The Turning Point” for Agility?

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I consider open standards a huge time saver when getting started on any architecture engagement. I would like to start a conversation here about the use of architecture standards for agility in a digital transformation. In the comments, would you please answer the following question?:

Which standards have you tried using, to solve which problems, and what benefits did you receive?

To get this started, here are some of the standards we opted to include in a book I recently co-authored with Kees van Brink and Sylvain Marie called, “The Turning Point: A Novel about Agile Architects Building a Digital Foundation.” The novel tells the story of Enterprise Architects and other characters in a company who recently went through a merger and who use several standards together to accelerate a Digital Transformation, including these standards from The Open Group